British Press Varies on Palestine Parliament Debate

November 20, 1930

London (Nov. 18)

Varied opinion regarding yesterday’s Parliamentary debate on Palestine is expressed today in the British press.

The Manchester Guardian finds that the government’s defense during the debate was inconsistent and evasive. The Guardian believes, however, that the “government’s reply meant an amendment for its sins,” and welcomes the plan announced by the government during the debate for a loan of $12,500,000 for land development in Palestine. The paper believes that the “land scheme will release land for Jews and increase the prosperity of Palestine, enabling the latter soon to relieve the British treasury.”

The Evening Standard declares that the debate showed that the “Socialist government never wholly says what it means and seldom wholly means what it says. The impression is growing that the government spends afternoons explaining away what it did or did not do in the morning.” Speaking of the widely criticized White Paper on Palestine, the Standard states that “if the White Paper was not intended to be a state document, it should not have been published, and if it was intended to be a state document, it should have been drafted clearly.”

The Standard then speculates about the possible outcome of the Parliamentary by-election to be held on December 3 in the overwhelmingly Jewish constituency of Whitechapel, where the White Paper aroused great resentment. “If the White Paper will cause fluctuation in the Whitechapel by-election, then an era of more misunderstandings is coming,” the Standard predicts.

The Daily Telegraph states that general surprise was expressed at the fact that Prime Minister MacDonald entrusted Albert Alexander, First Lord of the Admiralty, with making the final reply of the government during yesterday’s Parliamentary debate, instead of giving that job to Arthur Henderson. Foreign Secretary, who is an abler man. Some people believe that Mr. Henderson declined the job, because he is dissatisfied with the work of Lord Passfield, Secretary for the Colonies, the Telegraph declares.